Man ordered tried in Kansas killing of sister of slain woman

Jul. 30, 2017

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has been ordered to stand trial in the shooting death of the sister of a girl whose kidnapping 17 years earlier sparked a massive manhunt before she was found dead in Missouri.

A judge in Kansas' Wyandotte County on Friday ordered the trial after 41-year-old Emenencio Lansdown's preliminary hearing on charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm, The Kansas City Star reported .

Lansdown's attorney entered pleas of not guilty Friday on his behalf.

Lansdown is accused of killing Casey Eaton in April just a block from the Kansas City, Kansas, park dedicated to her late sister, Pamela Butler.

Butler was 10 in October 1999 when she was kidnapped while roller-skating near her Kansas City, Kansas, home. The abductor, Keith Nelson, got away, and Butler's body was later found in Grain Valley, Missouri.

Nelson later was convicted in federal court and sentenced to death.

According to testimony Friday, Lansdown told witnesses Eaton had shot herself, though he left the area before police arrived. Witnesses said Eaton and Lansdown had dated for a short time, and that Lansdown was angry because he believed she was seeing other men.